PORTLAND, OREGON - JANUARY 11, 2013 - The Portland Thorns held their first practice for their inaugural season in Jeld -Wen Field. Head coach Cindy Parlow Cone watches a drill. Brent Wojahn/The Oregonian

The time that has elapsed between the formation of a new professional women's league in November and the Portland Thorns' first practice Monday has been more than three months.

That amount of time has been far too long for Thorns coach Cindy Parlow Cone.

"I think this is the longest spell I have ever gone without coaching," Cone said. "I was itching to get on the field."

Not surprisingly, Cone and the Thorns players were excited when they opened training camp and finally held their first training session on a cool morning at Jeld-Wen Field.

"It was a little frantic, and that's totally natural for the first day, because they're all excited to be here and a little bit nervous," Cone said.

The Thorns are preparing for their inaugural regular season, which begins with a road game at Kansas City April 13. They are one of eight teams - Seattle, Chicago, Washington D.C., Kansas City, Western New York, Boston and New Jersey - that will compete in the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL).

The Thorns will play a 22-game schedule (11 home and 11 away games), play six teams three times and play rival Seattle four times during the season. The Thorns will play Seattle in their home opener April 21.

The players admitted to some nervous excitement during training, but they didn't take much time to develop a mindset very familiar to all of them.

"The flow was really good," said forward Danielle Foxhoven, a former University of Portland star. "It was nice to get a feel for her style and her coaching. She knows so much about the game."

The session on Monday allowed Cone to start giving the players a glimpse of the style of play she wants to see during a game.

"What you'll see from the Thorns is actually very similar to what you see from the Timbers now," Cone said. "Very possession-oriented and building out of the back and very dynamic, explosive attacking-wise and high pressure defensively."

The Thorns will train without a number of stars that were allocated to the team. Forward Alex Morgan, along midfielder Tobin Heath and defender Rachel Buehler are with the U.S. National Team that is competing in the Algarve Cup tournament in Portugal. Portland forward Christine Sinclair is a member of the Canadian national team that is competing in the Cyprus Cup.

Cone said she's not sure when the national team players will join the Thorns in training, but she's not worried about blending the players into the squad when they do arrive.

"They all have different dates based on what their national teams are doing. Some of them need to go home first before they come back here," Cone said. "We'll work as quickly as we can to blend them into the team and make them a part of our culture and our environment."

Cone and the players attended the Portland Timbers game against Montreal Saturday and were energized by the crowd. They're hoping to be able to feed off the energy of the crowd for their games.

"We already have the fans. We have the players," Cone said. "Now we've got to put it all together and put together a successful team on the field."

Notes: Heath will return to play for French squad Paris Saint-Germain and is expected to join the Thorns in June. …Morgan scored in the 56th minute as the United States finished in a 1-1 draw against Sweden Monday to earn a berth in the Algarve Cup championship game. The U.S. will play against Germany in the title game March 13. …Sinclair scored a goal in the 42nd minute in Canada's 2-1 win against the Netherlands Monday to advance to the Cyprus Cup tournament championship game, where they will face England.